week the flax is put into larger stacks to be rippled after harvest. 

 After being rippled it is put in large stacks, carefully thatched 

 and kept till the summer or fall of the next year, which greatly 

 improves the fiber and renders the retting more uniform. The 

 crop is usually 4,000 kilos to the hectare (8,816 pounds to 2^/^ 

 acres). The crop of seed is variable, according to the season. 

 A good season will yield 4,000 to 5,000 kilos (8,000 to 10,000 

 pounds). 



Retting. 



Rettings, after the harvest, the work of the farmers is ended, 

 as one or more contractors do the retting and the scutcher does 

 his work, each keeping strictly to his own branch of the work, 

 and thus becoming extremely expert and skilled in working flax 

 to its finest grades, making a division of labor. Nowhere in 

 Belgium is artificial retting used. The best flax comes from 

 the name of Courtrai, as Lys retted flax, the retting is done in 

 crates which are floated out in the river Lys and submerged. 

 These crates are four metres long (about 12 feet long)) 4 metres 

 broad and 4 metres deep and hold the flax in bundles of 3 to 4 

 kilos (6 to 8 pounds), which is set upright. Double retting is now 

 used all over Flanders, being so much better. The cost of double 

 retting the straw is 34 to 36 francs per 1,000 kilos of straw, ($20 

 per long ton). 



Slime Retting in East Flanders. 



While the conditions for producing flax in this region are 

 similar to the West Flanders and Courtrai regions, they have 

 no river available for retting like the Lys and are to a great ex- 

 tent, dependent on slime retting, which consists of putting the 

 straw in pits from which the ooze or slime has been removed, 

 before the flax is put in. The best time for this is March or April. It 

 consists in tying in small bundles and placing it on top of the 

 water in a ditch where it sinks about half and is turned every 

 day and left in the water one week and then taken out to dry in 

 stocks and again given a second retting, this system occupying 

 altogether from one to two months, and is used only under 

 compulsion, but is somewhat better than dew retting, which sys- 

 tem is only practiced where there are no water facilities. 



Scutching. 



These scutch mills are usually of brick and have from 20 to 

 25 stocks placed in two rows. The brake contains 8 to 12 

 wheels. The cost of such a mill is about 1,000 francs. The 

 waste from the brake is usually put through cylindrical shaking 

 machines which frees the chive from the tow and which is 

 pressed into bales of one cubic foot and sold as breaking tow, 

 what comes from the uncleaned, sells for 20 to 25 centimes per 

 100 kilos, while cleaned for 200 francs per 100 kilos, while the 

 scutched is sold for Courtrai flax at 200 to 400 dollars per long 

 ton (equal to 19 to 36 cents per pound). 



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